COVID-19 crisis has transitioned organizations to enable remote work at scale. Thankfully, most of the organizations have equipped themselves to continue the business as usual by shifting the gears and adapting to the new work from home setting. But work from home has its own challenges – both for the employees and employers.
So, how can employers make sure that employees are engaged and motivated when they are away from their regular work environment?
Here are a few strategies for enhancing employee engagement even in this work from home setting.
1. Robust Communication is the Key
Corporate leadership must engage its employees by sharing advice, action plan, policies, and protocols. Along with advice, these messages must have a personal element, urging employees not to panic or spread rumors. Overcommunicating and staying in touch has become the need of the hour.
2. Set Clear and Meaningful Goals
Organizations should focus on setting a series of clearly defined and meaningful goals that management would like to accomplish during this period of uncertainty. This can be done by starting new projects, driving new revenue over the next few weeks, or creating strategies to drive business. Whatever the
plans are, the organizations must communicate them well to their employees.
Communication becomes more than important when the teams are fragmented. Engaging employees through internal communications not only serve the purpose of keeping them engaged, but it also helps the management to convey their messages clearly to the employees.
3. Keep them Engaged with Recognition
Recognition is quintessential for the overall success of the organization. There is no better time than this to keep the employees engaged with recognition. Acknowledging your employees for their outstanding work motivates them to perform better, and they feel rejoiced for their contributions. Not only this, but
it also fuels the zeal of other employees to do better and earn appreciation from their managers.
4. Engage with Fun
Running employee engagement surveys periodically to check with employees about what they are feeling, thinking, and doing can be a good idea. This will give you an idea about what motivates them, what they feel about the company culture, what changes they are coping with, and many such things.
Understanding what your people are going through will give a clear picture of how you should deal with the situation. You can add elements of fun through gamification to the work that needs to be done, making it more interesting and engaging.
5. Encourage Learning and Development
It’s a great time for employees to learn what they have always wanted and the best time for managers to facilitate that. Many organizations have already invested in e-learning platforms and the employees can utilize their extra hours to learn new skills or upskill their existing skills.
Employees want personal and professional development at work. They love to be in a job that promotes learning and growth. Learning initiatives by an organization motivates and engages employees.
6. Provide Support for Right Set of Tools
The mantra of good work lies in two things – the skills a person has and the tools they have access to. Modern-day offices are equipped with state-of-the-art tools and technologies. This has a direct correlation with the quality of work. But when employees work from home, lacking state-of-the-art facilities that employees would have access to in the office becomes a massive hurdle to employees’
productivity.
When employees work from home, they require the right pieces of equipment more than ever. Most of the time it is the employee who bears the cost of getting the tools and other resources needed for the job. The organizations must look to compensate these expenses to reduce the burden from employees’ heads.
7. Re-examine the Employee-Employer Relation
COVID-19 crisis is a great opportunity for organizations to elevate their work culture, making it mutually beneficial. Organizations must display trust in their team at this point. Most of the managers now have made it mandatory for their employees to report deliverables every day, which was not the case before.
Replicating the style of working at the office can help employees feel trusted, thereby reduce stress and boost productivity.
The Bottom Line
The world is hit by a pandemic that has no cure yet. Thanks to technology, working from home is now remarkably smooth and productive. It has become a necessity for a modern-day organization to keep its employees engaged during these unprecedented times. Not only the top management, HR, leaders, or
managers but also the employees have to come stronger adapting to this change. This post is an attempt to help organizations formulate strategies to improve employee engagement and keep their employees motivated.
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